I couldn't speak directly to this of course but some kind of Plex/Sonarr/Radarr/NzbDrone/NzbHydra/Deluge/Jackett running in docker containers with a GPU or Intel QuickSync for transcoding is something... Maybe throw in Tautilli for monitoring and something like Ombi (There is probably something better now) to make requesting easier and you are off the races. I mean, in theory of course.

This. And do yourself a favour and rent a seedbox where you can run all the above and stream from anywhere. Costs less monthly than the electricity costs for running them in your home.

While this can be true the local option can be quite attractive for the 90%+ use-case of watching at home. Not to mention the costs of storage in the cloud. Best deal I found was a Hertzner server for $30/mo with 6TB (2x3TB). I used that for a while but in the long run, local is king. I have gigabit fiber symmetrical so that does have to be factored in (if you have crappy upload and want to provide for remote access then a seed box might be ideal).

I have a basic nas at home which I periodically download content to from the seedbox so I'm getting away with just 1tb capacity online at around 11euro per month. Have plex running on a raspberrypi which just indexes from both seedbox and nas and serves to TVs around the house without transcoding.

So on the Pi are you mounting the cloud server (or part of it) and then Plex just "proxies" the file to the local TV?

Exactly.

Don't get me wrong I have Netflix and prime but Disney plus, hulu and hbo max are not available to me so I need to work around the stupid global restrictions.

I pay for multiple online services but I hate switching UI/UX/etc and remembering which platform has which show this week and where in the show I am. If I could cache files locally (on a server or phone/tablet) and suck all the content into Plex (or some other third-party client) then I'd pay quite a bit for that service.

As it stands today you can build your own version of this but if you want to stay 100% above board you get a crappier experience (don't get me started on the cluster-f around rights). It reminds me of the jokes back when DVDs were still a "thing" and you had to sit through ads and piracy warnings if you bought it legitimately but if you "stole" it you were able to jump right into the movie.

this probably adds complexity for non-savvy users. for instance, my TV can handle a ~20mbps unencrypted stream. turn on encryption in plex, and that drops down to ~8mbps. I'm fine with routing an unencrypted stream through my LAN, but I'd rather not do that with pirated media through my ISP.

I see your point and it makes sense but it always depends on where you live.

I ditch the management completely and do a Plex Share.

I recommend jellyfin (https://jellyfin.org/). It will require some tech skills to setup, but after that accessing it is as simple as going to the website address it is hosted at.

The best thing about Jellyfin is that it is free software: open source, permissive license, and no paid features (which alternatives like Plex have).

You can host Jellyfin on your own VPS, I host mine on a Hetzner VPS for just over 10 eur / month but that is very overkill, you can host one for far less. The only thing to keep in mind is that transcoding (streaming in a different resolution to the stored media) is quite computationally expensive so if lot's of people are transcoding at once you will need a good CPU.

Then any family member can just visit the IP address of the server in their web browser (or you can buy it a domain name). Jellyfin has a native iOS app they can use from their phones. For viewing it on TVs, there is an app for AppleTV which has Jellyfin support (cant remember the name right now but I can find it if you need it).

Your friend may want to look into Plex. It has a good web client, as well as mobile and desktop so family can use it without a lot of work. It supports profiles and the server manager can assign collections to profiles to enable hiding some content from some users.

Plex: https://www.plex.tv

Plex gets you part of the way, but for not-tech-savvy people, what you probably really want is a Plex Share, as that will keep you from needing to manage any of the media. You'll have to figure out how to adjust some settings on any TV streaming in 4k for most Shares, but it's not terrible to set up. There's a subreddit for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/plexshares/

Plex and Sonarr is a great place to start.

Lookup plex or jellyfin with sonarr or radarr to handle content. All projects are on github

Most people will suggest Plex, but I prefer Emby 1000x more than Plex